Focus: news of interest about creation and evolution

Fossil figures fall

The number of species living in the past, as estimated from fossils, is not as great
as once thought, according to a new study seeking to catalogue every fossil ever
dug up.

So far, the researchers have found that a number of fossils have been misidentified
as being separate species, whereas in fact they are the same species. Poor communication
between taxonomists in different countries can often lead to fossils being wrongly
given their own species status.

Accordingly, it is now estimated that the overall number of species in the fossil
record is inflated by 32–44%.

New Scientist, 23 August 2003, pp. 32–35.

‘Species’ is not the same as ‘kind’. Lions and tigers are
different ‘species’, but they can interbreed to produce ligers and tigons
(Creation22(3):28–33, 2000).

So they are descendants of a single pair that Noah took on the Ark. (So sceptics’
ideas that Noah needed to look after ‘hundreds of thousands of species’
are not valid.) Note that even aside from this new information, only about 340,000
actual fossil specimens (estimated to represent about 250,000 species) have been
found.

A common claim that 99% of fossil species have become extinct is based on the assumption
of evolution, i.e. that billions of intermediate species once existed.

Rapid oil

Scientists have developed other methods to rapidly convert waste products into liquid
fuel. But such processes are expensive and inefficient, requiring extremely high
pressures and temperatures. ‘The chief difference in our process is that we
make water a friend rather than an enemy’, said Brian Appel, CEO of Changing
World Technologies, describing his company’s waste-into-oil installation in
Missouri, USA. ‘The other processes all tried to drive out water. We drive
it in, inside this tank, with heat and pressure. We super-hydrate the material.’

Thus, temperatures and pressures need only be modest, because water helps to convey
heat into the organic material.

Discover, <www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html>, 2 May 2003.

Once more we see that the earth’s oil reserves did not need millions
of years to form. The key ingredients needed for making oil in this new industrial
process were all present at the time of the Flood (only about 4,500 years ago):
uprooted plants and dead animals, moderate pressures (under layers of water-borne
sediment) and, of course, water—all in abundance!

More clone deaths

There are new fears about cloning after three cloned pigs collapsed and died of
heart failure at less than six months of age.

The ‘adult clone sudden death syndrome’, as one researcher called it,
struck down all surviving members of a litter cloned using a variant of the ‘Dolly’
cloning technique. This is where a whole adult cell was forced into a fertilized
egg that had been emptied of its own genetic material. (A fourth piglet had died
only a few days after being born.)

These untimely deaths are a reminder of the problems plaguing cloned animals (see
‘Dolly dead’, Creation
25(3):8, 2003), with many falling ill or dying just after birth.

Thumbs up for human Neandertals

Although Neandertals are known to have made and used tools, they have been presumed
by many to have had limited ability to use their hands, based on interpretations
of the anatomy of their thumb and forefinger.

But the latest research indicates no significant difference between Neandertals
and people today in their ability to move thumb and index finger to give precise
grip.

So anatomical evidence and archaeological evidence both indicate Neandertals were
just like humans today, manufacturing and handling a range of implements and tools.

Nature, 27 March 2003, p. 395.

Evolutionists aren’t sure what to do with Neandertal man—whether he
is a precursor of modern man or an offshoot that died out. But fossils of Neandertals
don’t present a problem for creationists—Neandertals being fully human,
descendants of the first man, Adam, who was created in the image of God. (More at
Thumbs up for Neandertals.)

Planet theories wrong

Hubble telescope pictures of ‘a giant gaseous object orbiting two burned-out
stars’ is forcing a rethink of theories of the origins of planets. Astronomers
say the gaseous object is the most distant and oldest planet yet found in the universe,
as it appears to have formed 12.7 billion years ago, within a billion years of the
theorized big bang origin of the universe.

But these conclusions challenge the belief that planets could not have formed so
early because of insufficient heavy elements at that time. So the astronomers say
this discovery shows that all theories of planetary formation may have to be revised.

The detection of this planet goes against evolutionary predictions, but its existence
is consistent with the Bible. Note that the planet’s alleged age is not based
on any evidence whatsoever—see New planet challenges
evolutionary models.

What a web they weave

Spider silk has been found preserved in a piece of amber ‘dated’ at
130 million years old, eclipsing the previous date for the oldest preserved silk
of 40 million years old.

Because this latest find resembles silk from the complex aerial webs of modern orb-weaver
or comb-footed spiders, the fossils of which are found in rocks dated at 190 million
years, [evolutionists say] complex web-weaving must be at least that old.

New Scientist, 9 August 2003, p. 24.

Nature, 7 August 2003, pp. 636–637.

Spider silk is stronger and more efficiently produced than any man-made fibre (Creation23(2):20–21, 2001).
This is testimony to a Creator (Romans
1:20). But could spider silk really last for 130 million years? Preservation
in amber is consistent with there having been a global Flood (Creation25(2):52–53,
2003) around 4,500 years ago. Also, comb-footed spiders today are still
the same as fossilized comb-footed spiders, testifying to reproduction ‘after
their kind’, i.e. no evolution.

Sniffer dogs

The wild dogs called jackals have a much sharper sense of smell than domestic dogs,
but are less willing to be put to work.

So a Russian research group has crossed a jackal with a husky to breed the ‘ultimate’
sniffer dog. Now 25 of the new breed are used at a Moscow airport to sniff out drugs
and explosives in planes and luggage. A further 10 ‘jacksy’ dogs are
working in a forensic department.

New Scientist, 18 May 2002, p. 19.

This shows again that the Bible’s created kinds often include more than one
‘species’.

It also shows that the selective breeding that produced domestic dogs removed information,
in the case of the husky, its acute sense of smell.

Don’t blame the asteroid

Many say that an asteroid smashing into the earth 65 million years ago caused the
dinosaur extinction. But this may be misplaced, say paleontologists.

They claim to have found evidence of global climate change before the asteroid
hit. So they say the dinosaurs were already in sharp decline, and the impact winter
simply finished them off quickly.

Evolutionists assume the fossil record shows the order of evolution and extinction.
The biblical perspective is that vast numbers of creatures perished in the Flood
(with many of their remains being fossilized under layers of sediment, which later
hardened into rock), but all the kinds of land animals and birds survived aboard
the Ark (including dinosaurs), repopulating the earth afterwards. Since then, many
creatures have gone extinct, not just dinosaurs, in an ongoing display of the Curse
on creation.

Germ degeneration

When new disease-causing bacteria appear, it is commonly thought that it is because
they gained [‘evolved’] new genes, thus enabling them to attack particular
animal species or humans. But a recent study of three species of Bordetella
whooping cough bacteria shows just the opposite, i.e. the bacteria have lost
genes. This ‘substantial gene loss and inactivation’ makes the bacteria
even more dependent on their unfortunate animal or human ‘host’.

So, the appearance of new disease-causing Bordetella bacteria resulted
not from an ‘upwards’ genetic gain, but a ‘downhill’ loss
of genes. As The Scientist dubbed it: ‘Survival of the not-so-fit’.

We have earlier reported evidence that losing an ability can make germs more dangerous
(Creation24(4):8,
2002). Remember, too, that germs were originally not harmful in the ‘very
good’ world God made, but benign or useful.

The legs that weren’t

The fossilized skull and other fragments of a whale unearthed in California, USA,
are forcing a rethink of some aspects of whale evolution.

In particular, paleontologists are surprised that such a ‘primitive’
whale ‘lived about 20 million years later than it should have’. They
say, ‘the creature may have had small rear legs, though this remains speculative
because the rear part of the whale was not found’.

A fishy story—even telling us what size these imaginary legs were likely to
have been!

Aardvark ancestry?

An international team of researchers claims that every mammal, including man, is
descended from a common ancestor genetically similar to the modern aardvark.

Comparing chromosomes of mammal species shows that the aardvark has the greatest
number of genetic features in common with other mammals. The researchers conclude
that the aardvark is the closest living relative of our common ancestor.

Proceedings of the NAS, 4 February 2003, pp. 1062–1066.

Evolutionists assume that common features are evidence of common ancestry. Creationists
explain such similarities in living things as evidence of a common Designer (Romans
1:20). See Are look-alikes related?
Creation19(2):39–41, 1997.

Even faster diamonds

While many people still think natural diamonds need millions of years to form, the
technology to rapidly synthesize diamonds continues to improve. [See Creation25(3):7, 2003; 25(1):9, 2002.]

Researchers have now made diamonds by reacting carbon dioxide with metallic sodium
in a pressurized oven at only 440ºC—the lowest temperature reported so
far for diamond synthesis—and 800 atmospheres. (Other methods require pressures
up to five million atmospheres and temperatures up to 1,400°C.) It took
just 12 hours.

New Scientist, 26 July 2003, p. 17.

Hi-tech Ötzi

Further analysis of the frozen corpse of Ötzi, the ‘ice man’ found
in the Austrian-Italian Alps in 1991, shows that his society, three thousand years
ago, had a high level of technology.Ö tzi’s equipment included a framed
backpack, a copper axe, dried fruit and other foods, and a fire-making kit that
included flint and ores for making sparks.

‘Ötzi was extremely well equipped, each object fashioned from the material
best suited to its purpose’, said the Özi researchers. For example, Ötzi’s
longbow was made of yew—‘the best wood for such a purpose because of
its great tensile strength’.

Longbows of yew gave the English army a crucial advantage at the battle of Agincourt
in 1415—thousands of years after Ötzi’s society had discovered
their power. Ötzi was also carrying plants with powerful pharmaceutical properties,
e.g. birch bracket fungus—in other words, his own first aid kit.

Ötzi’s last meal included goat meat and bread cooked in a charcoal oven.
Said one commentator: ‘Clearly Stone Age Europeans were sophisticated individuals
who exploited local resources and led lives that were far from brutish or short.’

Scientific American, May 2003, pp. 60–69.

The Observer, 4 May 2003, p. 7.

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